Follow this link to an article in the The Independent in Great Britain.

This is a view of what is really going on in Iraq that you probably won’t find in the U.S. media. It is another indication that, to be successful, our leaders need to know the truth about what is going on rather than pretending that they do.

If you are going to vote in an election for President, don’t you think you ought to know what is really going on, too?

Follow this link to watch a video of Captain Luis Montalvan (retired) discussing life after the war.

Captain Montalvan (retired) served in the US Army for 17 years. He received several medals for his service in Iraq. He currently suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. He also found a high level of incompetence among some of the Colonels and Generals with which he served.

It gives some ideas of what could be done to save the situation in Iraq. Up to this point I have been pretty doubtful that there was any good path out of Iraq. This item shows that there may be imaginative alternatives to occupying Iraq forever or “cutting and running”.

It is so important for people to be open minded enough to see solutions to the situation that they may not have been able to imagine by themselves.

This covers a significant part of Colin Powell’s career. There is a large section in the beginning that details some experiences that Colin Powell had during the Viet Nam War. It is a lesson on exactly why it is stupid and immoral to attack a civilian population to get revenge for military setbacks.

The rest of the article goes into some other fiascoes involving Colin Powell. If only I had known about this before the Iraq War, I would have been even more sure that it was a mistake. Even the rest of the country and world would have known not to trust Colin Powell’s assurances.